I flipped through some ideas on Saturday, and the Upside-Down Banana-Coffee tart jumped out– primarily because we’d just bought a lot of bananas (I’m still on that smoothie kick). The other reason, of course, was that I had all the ingredients in the house 🙂

Before I hand you over to the good, good lovin’ at Chow.com, I’ll note that I eliminated all the lemon details (zest and juice) from the recipe, and I used a store-bought puff-pastry dough. Also, be sure to tuck the edges of the pastry crust down into the sides of the pan…you won’t contain all of the delicious gooeyness, nor should you…but you want to keep some of it inside the tart 🙂

Upside-Down Banana-Coffee Tart Recipe

We got the inspiration for this recipe from the French apple upside-down tart known as tarte Tatin. For our version, we’ve replaced the apples with bananas and infused the caramel with coffee.

What to buy: Look for firm-ripe bananas that are still tinged with a bit of green—if they are too ripe, they’ll turn to mush in the oven.

Special equipment: A 12-inch cast iron skillet is perfect for this recipe; however, if you don’t have one, any heavy-bottomed, oven-safe frying pan will work.

Be sure to have a platter or plate slightly larger than your skillet handy for turning out the tart once it’s cooled. One with a slight lip or rim is preferable, as the caramel tends to spread a little once the tart is unmolded.

Game plan: For a slacker solution, use high-quality store-bought pie dough in place of making your own.

When I was young, these sugar cookies were a Christmas staple. But sometimes things you loved when you were a kid don’t live up to your adult standards. Well, this Betty Crocker classic has busted through the child-adult taste barrier. Make the kids roll these out, and then eat them yourself.

I want to try these for the simple pleasure of it. Mine will look nothing like them, of course, but hell, sugar cookies are just inherently good. And I’ll take any opportunity to legitimately slap icing on something 🙂

The rest of the photo gallery looks pretty fabulous as well… I want to try the Chocolate Crinkle cookies coated in powdered sugar. Mmmmmmm…..

Butter, sugar, eggs, salt, and flour—that’s the short ingredient list for these versatile sandy-textured sugar cookies. For simple round cookies, form the dough into a log, then slice it into rounds. For shaping with cookie cutters, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick and cut it into cool designs.

Game plan: The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.